Page 2 of How to Capture a Duke

He kept walking until he was within an arm’s reach of her. Beneath that stormy stare, her heart pounded so fiercely in her chest she feared he could hear it. She noticed more about him now. His body was muscular, like the type of man who rode all day and worked hard. His broad shoulders rivaled the pugilists in her brother’s boxing ring in the back of the casino—the Raven Club. She wasn’t easily intimidated, but this man…

She forced aside her misgivings. He was a groom, and she was a guest. Raising her chin, she met his steely gaze. “I want to ride the stallion. I need a groom.”

He pierced her with a hard stare. “No one rides Atlas but the d…d-uke.”

“No one?”

“His stable. His rules.”

Her confidence returned along with a good dose of anger. “Fine. Would you kindly ask His Grace if I may ride the black then?”

He shook his head. “His Grace is not here.”

An obvious fact. “When is he expected to return?”

“He d…d-oes not confide in me.”

She noticed two things. He spoke properly for a head groom, but his speech was not perfect. He stammered over certain words, struggled to form them. She’d had a young maid with a similar speaking condition. Olivia had been pleased with the way Cynthia had dressed her hair, and the girl had been more than pleasant. But Olivia’s disciplinarian father, the old Earl of Castleton, had found the girl’s speech off-putting and had dismissed her without a reference.

She would have assumed a man as powerful and wealthy as the Duke of Keswick would demand a well-spoken head groom. There was only one explanation. He must be exceptional with the horses.

Olivia clutched her hands before her. “If I’m not permitted to ride Atlas, then I wish to ride another.”

“No.”

“No?” she repeated, dumbfounded. How could he deny her? She was a guest, not a wandering country girl.

His eyes narrowed. “Where is your chaperone? I have the d…d-istinct impression the lady has no idea of the whereabouts of her charge.”

Her chaperone, her mother, indeed had no idea where she was and would have a conniption if she knew Olivia was having a heated argument with a groom rather than preparing for the unlikely appearance of His Grace at the house party.

“Fine,” she snapped. “But I shall return.”

She took one last longing look at Atlas. She hadn’t given up on the stallion.

Just the duke.

…

Tristan Cameron, the fourth Duke of Keswick, leaned against the stable doors and watched the lady head for the manor. Her presence had disturbed him. Why was one of the ladies from the house in his stables about to touch his horse? As soon as he’d spotted her near Atlas, he’d barked his command for her to cease. Startled, she’d turned.

Momentarily, he’d been just as surprised as she was. The lady was well-curved with golden hair and green eyes. There was both delicacy and strength in her face. She was pretty, but he had seen many beautiful women. It was the keen determination in her eyes, her excitement and anticipation as she gazed at Atlas, that set her apart from other debutantes. Of course, she had thought him a groom. She had no reason to flutter her eyelashes or curve her well-shaped lips in a calculated smile in order to lure a man into a feminine trap.

He wondered exactly who she was. The daughter of a marquess, an earl, or a viscount? One of the ladies who had traveled from London to Rosehill for the sole purpose of enticing a duke—him—into marriage.

She’d fail. They all would.

His grandmother had insisted on hosting the infernal house party. He couldn’t blame Antonia for her repeated efforts to see him married, but neither did he have to fall into his grandmother’s trap. Tristan hated social gatherings with a passion. He kept busy with his estates, his correspondence, his ledgers, his duties in the House of Lords, and the well-being of the many tenants of Rosehill—the hard-working men and women that depended upon him for their livelihood and whose labor added to the ducal coffers.

Those who never watched him warily as he spoke.

Unlike in his youthful years at Eton and even Oxford, he now was too powerful to be mocked. But he recognized the cruel sneers of dandies and the snickers behind ladies’ fluttering fans as he struggled to form certain words. Stress made his stuttering worse. For this reason, he avoided balls, garden parties, house parties, and whatever social gatherings the beau monde devised for their ceaseless and ridiculous need for frivolous entertainment. He was also highly aware of what certain men called him, had called him since his school days.

The Stuttering Duke.

He wouldn’t set foot in the manor, not until every young debutant had given up hope of capturing the elusive duke and headed back to London and the bosom of the ton.

He turned back to Atlas and reached for a saddle. He’d ride and dismiss the golden-haired lady from his thoughts. Despite his grandmother’s wishes, he had no intention to be burdened by a wife.